25 things about me

I came across quite a few of these kind of posts the last few days and couldn't resist adding my own list of 25 things about me that you may or may not know.

1. My favorite TV shows as a kid were Speed Racer and Star Trek. Someone give me a phaser (I promise to be gracious and to set it to "stun") or teach me the Vulcan death grip – the time one of my older daughters will bring home their first boyfriend is coming closer every day!

2. As a teenager I used my chemistry set to experiment with explosives. I blew up my first self-made bomb in my grandpa’s backyard, leaving a huge crater (and me running for dear life, expecting police sirens around the corner any minute!).

3. My first English teacher in high school (I grew up as a German in Germany) told my parents that languages probably weren’t my thing. That was before I went on to learn French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and before moving to Canada permanently.

4. My favorite books as an adolescent were George MacDonald’s “Lilith” and C.S. Lewis’ “Perelandra”.

5. I was drafted into the military after high school and spent an entire year guarding nuclear bombs mounted on Starfighter Jets ready to take off within 5 minutes for a retaliatory strike in case of an imminent attack from the East. Seems like a lot of wasted time now, for more than one reason!

6. Through my home church, I got to visit another youth group in East Germany several years before the Berlin Wall came down. A government spy reported my host who worked as a secretary at the local city hall and she had to endure some harsh interrogations by the STASI (East German Secret Service) after my return to West Germany.

7. I was broadsided in a very scary hit and run accident a couple years ago and was able to walk away with our oldest daughter, both of us without a scratch although she sat right next to where we were hit.

8. My grandmother on my dad’s side was a pastor’s wife and a popular author of Christian novels.

9. My favorite vacation ever was a 6 day trip to Maui shortly before our 10th wedding anniversary in 2001.

10. I love wrestling (actively, not watching!) and cooking. Go figure!

11. My favorite parts of growing up were trips with our youth group – biking throughout England, canoeing in Sweden, hiking in the Black Forest, skiing in the Alps.

12. My first crush (I think) was a blonde named “Petra” in elementary school. But that’s just an educated guess, there were too many crushes already early on to be entirely sure!

13. My first exposure to public speaking happened when the pastor of my home church decided one Sunday that a 12-year-old like me surely could do the Scripture Reading before a crowd of several hundred people. He informed me about it just minutes before the church service started.

14. My first appearance in an amateur movie ( or narrated slide show, actually) was a production of our youth group which featured me as the winning runner in a contemporary adaptation of 1 Corinthians 9:24.

15. Almost 30 years later, the youth group of our current church decided to feature me as Rod Stewart, singing the winning tune in a Canadian Idol competition. Both productions definitely fall in the category of “extreme comedy”.

16. My first addictions were Coca Cola and chocolate. They started in grade 5. Not a whole lot has changed since then.

17. My first encounter with computers took place at my best friend’s house, playing games on his AMIGA.

18. I once spent an entire night during my early University years programming (i.e. copying from a magazine!) a game into a friend’s Commodore64 computer! Another night was spent proofreading a Korean student's doctoral thesis whose due date for submission was the next morning.

19. Speaking about all-nighters, during my time at Seminary in Canada, my wife once spent a whole night typing one of my papers - which was due in the morning as well - on a typewriter that kept quitting on her and that only continued working after repeated prayer (or exorcism?)!

20. I worked several years as a student aide for the most controversial professor of our Tuebingen University faculty, Professor Peter Beyerhaus.

21. I never could drink milk straight, although I love chocolate milk and hot chocolate.

22. I’ve been with many dying people in my visitations over the last 17 years but never happened to be present at the actual moment of someone’s death.

23. I’ve been tipsy but never drunk. I smoked a cigar once in my life (not voluntarily!) during my bachelor party and got such a fat lip as an allergic reaction that we were fearing it may ruin our wedding pictures the next day.

24. I’ve driven at the speed of 100 miles an hour on the Autobahn and kissed at the same time (and no, I'm not related to James Dean!).

25. I almost drowned once, in a lake in Sweden, after going off on my own and misjudging my ability to swim to an island and back against high winds and suffering already from hypothermia. I somehow made it back to shore after a long time and some intense praying in the frigid water.